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Re: Inferior excruciating ligament

There are two web references to “anterior excruciate ligament” and a few more to just “excruciate ligament,” though a few of these are puns.

“Excruciate” for “cruciate” has eggcorn potential, considering the pain caused by a torn knee ligament.

Interesting verb, “excruciate.” It’s pretty much obsolete as a transitive verb and a past particle, as you can see by the Google n-gram diagrams. The present participle, however, seems to be recovering from a midcentury lull. Notice that “excruciating” begins to recover about the time late-night TV begins.

But I hope you don’t mind if we include you in that inventive group, because the ligament in question is the anterior cruciate ligament. You’ve in fact spawned what we call a double yolker, by calling it interior as well, which is anatomically correct, and indicates clearly where the pain is coming from. I’m euphoric when I discover that I’ve been incubating an eggcorn for years; I hope you take it the same way!